Avaya is a leading provider of solutions that enable customer and team engagement across multiple channels and devices for better customer experience, increased productivity and enhanced financial performance. Its world-class contact center and unified communications technologies and services are available in a wide variety of flexible on-premise and cloud deployment options that seamlessly integrate with non-Avaya applications. The Avaya Engagement Environment enables third parties to create and customize business applications for competitive advantage. Avaya’s fabric-based networking solutions help simplify and accelerate the deployment of business critical applications and services. For more information, please visit www.avaya.com.

An All-New MCU – So What?

Today, we announced a new MCU, and while that might sound like an announcement only an IT person could love, there is a lot more to the story! The new Scopia Elite 6000 Series MCU really is a game-changer.

It shatters the cost barriers of high definition video conferencing with a revolutionary new architecture for full-featured, enterprise-grade (transcoded) video. Our new MCU leverages both software and hardware–a hybrid approach that has enabled us to redefine the capacity and density capabilities of an MCU.

The Elite 6000 Series MCU comes in a single 1U server and can house up to 40 x 1080p/30 ports and 80 x 720p/30 ports. From what I’ve seen, that’s more than twice the competition (in some cases, five times what our biggest competitors offer in a 1U server). Below is a comparison of popular MCUs:

What’s more, it requires a fraction of the power that the competition’s boxes use. As a result, we’ve dropped the industry average price per 720p/30 port by 25 percent or more – lowering the point of entry to under $6,000 per port (figures below are based on information gathered via a Web search).

That means savings across the board for our customers. What’s not exciting about that!?!

Doing more with less is a constant theme in our lives these days. The Elite 6000 Series helps businesses save money by making high quality video conferencing more affordable than ever before. And the benefits multiply from there. Rolling out video collaboration capabilities to more employees helps businesses save money because their employees are able to be more productive, make better, faster decisions and save on business travel. It also means employees recoup time spent driving to the office or to customer and partner sites. That frees up more personal time to spend with loved ones. So if you ask me, we’re making the world a better place with this next-gen MCU. Well… maybe not quite, but it was worth a shot 😉

But wait… there’s more!
The Elite 6000 Series MCU wasn’t our only news of the day. We also launched a network readiness and monitoring tool called eVident. A number of vendors have offered similar tools in the past – often branded as their own but developed by a third party. eVident is different – it’s the most comprehensive tool I’m aware of. In talking with a handful of industry analysts, some veteran video network administrators, they agree that eVident is a powerful tool and one that’s much needed in this industry.

Radvision engineers created eVident to address the needs of our larger service provider partners as well as to monitor our own network. It makes sense when you consider our intense focus on optimizing video quality over all types of networks. We wanted to give customers and partners the tools they need to assess, manage and optimize their networks – because a well-managed network is key to delivering an exceptional video collaboration experience.

eVident covers three critical elements for network and endpoint assessments and monitoring:

PreVideo enables network administrators to test their networks and determine whether they are ready for Voice over IP (VoIP) and HD video conferencing (prior to deployment).

RVMON delivers real time QoE monitoring through continuous collecting and analysis of audio and video metrics of conferences throughout the entire installation, including third-party endpoints and MCUs.

VQInsider provides in-depth measurement and analysis of the user experience for quantification of voice and video quality.

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5 Ways to Become an Omnichannel Customer Experience Pro

Consider how much has changed over the last decade in terms of technology and the customer experience (CX). About 10 years ago, the first iPhone would be hitting the U.S. market soon. Social media platforms like Snapchat and Instagram wouldn’t be released until three or four years later. At the time, sophisticated interaction channels like social media, web chat and presence were available to enhance the CX. But, for the most part, businesses weren’t adopting them. And the concept of a platform that seamlessly integrated various channels and devices to deliver consistent, contextual, end-to-end experiences? Not so much.

At this point, organizations surely know that competitiveness and revenue are driven by an unparalleled omnichannel strategy. So why do we continue to see brands fraught with indecision? Why are so many still challenged in this area? It’s clear that one question remains: what does an effective omnichannel strategy really look like? The way we see it, and the data supports it, there are five ways companies can become omnichannel pros to deliver extraordinary customer experiences:

Create a corporate culture: Arguably, successful transformation goes beyond technology. It is the enterprise’s approach to customer service, a customer culture so to speak. One that begins with understanding the customer journey and that ends with everyone across the business having a priority of exceeding expectations at every point on that journey. A strong corporate culture must be an organizational commitment from the top down.

Eliminate channel silos: 60% of channels today are managed in silos, and nearly 40% of companies have no consistency in how their channels are configured. Most companies believe silo elimination is too difficult to accomplish, yet are still heavily investing in digital communication tools that require complete integration to deliver optimal value. It’s easy to see the problem here.

Integrate systems and processes: The customer relationship is shaped by experiences across all lines of business. Therefore companies need a single view of the customer across all contact points, events, interactions and timelines. Currently, only 42% of companies share customer data organization-wide, and only 38% have integrated disparate systems. While contact center transformation is a must, an omnichannel customer experience should go beyond this one line of business. Consider, for instance, how various back-office applications can be leveraged to deliver truly personalized interactions.

Move at customer speed: 30% of companies admit their service functions don’t meet user needs. Just how many are offering interaction channels that satisfy the needs of their target audience? Better yet, how many can easily and quickly build custom communication apps that meet exact customer needs and continually improve outcomes? When building an omnichannel strategy, application development is just as important as application integration. And customer behaviors change as quickly as a new social media app can emerge.

Take action on data analytics: By “data analytics,” we mean customer journey analytics: data collected across all lines of business to support a powerful, real-time visualization of the customer journey. Almost 60% of companies agree that analytics improves the customer journey, yet 64% have no big data analysis capability that combines data from all knowledge sources (from across the entire enterprise, not just inside the contact center). Customer journey analytics enables organizations to quickly locate and alleviate problem hotspots that impact the CX (something that only 24% of companies today can do) and empowers them with an inherent understanding of how customers are using a combination of channels.

Ten years ago, the concept of an open, integrated, future-proof platform—one that was inherently secure and built to support customers’ continually evolving needs—was nearly inconceivable. Today, this kind of platform is a necessity thanks to technologies like IoT, AI and automation. These technologies have thrust enterprises into a smart, digital world of seemingly limitless CX capabilities … one that’s just getting started.

Be Ready! Six Steps to Take Before a Natural Disaster Hits Your Communications

In what’s shaping up to be an unprecedented hurricane season for the U.S., Avaya wants to ensure that we all review our plans to keep communication systems running at peak performance and stabilized when disaster strikes. Keeping communication systems running often includes a great partner with a deep bench of experts who have experience in many complex situations. Particularly invaluable are battle-tested IT experts who can help rebuild and stabilize communications when disaster strikes. Avaya can engage in a proactive support dialogue to help you avoid complexity from the outset.

Before the Storm

Hurricanes like Harvey and Irma can be catastrophic to businesses. In 2012, Superstorm Sandy caused $65 billion in damage in the U.S., making it the second-costliest weather disaster in American history behind only Hurricane Katrina, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). During the storm, 8,204,220 Americans and thousands of businesses lost power.

No matter the weather (and because the average cost of downtime is $2,700 per minute), it is best to avoid outages by knowing what is most likely to cause communication system outages. According to the research report The Essential Guide to Avoiding Networking Outages, power outages are the leading cause of communications outages. This white paper features an analysis of the top five causes of outages with the percentage of those outages that could potentially have been prevented had leading practices been followed. The top five causes of outages are:

Power outages – 74%

Lack of routine maintenance – 73%

Software bug – 69%

Hardware failure – 39%

Network issue – 35%

The analysis shows that outages can be avoided by using industry-leading outage prevention practices. Leveraging resources now and on an ongoing basis to determine if facilities can meet power demands and ward off problems is essential. Also, make sure to:

Schedule maintenance of systems to avoid what is the high percentage of remediable outages (73%) attributed to poor maintenance and underutilized upkeep.

Watch for telltale signs from equipment that a problem is approaching. Proactive health checks, disciplined system monitoring, and observed maintenance schedules can aid in hearing the signal, helping improve the reliability of communications assets.

Upgrade equipment approaching end of manufacturing support (EoMS), avoiding the fallout from the over-sweating of assets.

Verify system redundancy, system health checks, and failover strategies for critical systems.

Patch whenever possible to eliminate software bugs or software-related outages. Some choose to let others occupy the upgrade frontlines and endure potential rollout hiccups, then follow along at a safe interval. This strategy breaks down disastrously when an organization suffers an outage that would have been avoided with a fix that it voluntarily chose to postpone.

Draw a network diagram to isolate an outage, speed resolution by illustrating the relationships among pieces of equipment, and isolate that outage!

As a hurricane or other natural disaster approaches, try not to depend on local team members who could be facing challenges of their own at home. Instead, move team members to locations where they can work with clients. When assembling a team, pull from across the organization and leverage readouts at defined intervals.

Pre-Event Checklist

Follow these six steps to prepare before a hurricane—or other disasters—strike:

Save translations before an emergency event impacts the site. This will help ensure that recent changes are not lost and speed restoration in the advent of damage to the system.

Review safety procedures with all employees prior to the emergency event, if possible, and make certain to have an updated contact list to keep in touch.

Secure back-up media so that translations won’t be lost or damaged, thereby delaying restoration of your service. Take a copy of back-ups and any other information off site.

Print and store a current list configuration of key solutions. If a new system is necessary, this simple precaution will save time in starting the process.

Consider powering your system down before the emergency event impacts the site. Electrical power surges both before and after an emergency event can pose the greatest threat to your system.

Contemplate moving switch/applications if the site is located in an area that may be exposed to damage from the emergency.

Taking the above actions can limit risk and help ensure your communications systems make it through a challenging, tough time. Learn more at our Help Center. And if you do have an outage on your Avaya equipment, report it at Support.Avaya.com. Or call 800-242-2121.

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In Digital Transformation, Initial Business Discovery is Key

We’ve all heard the saying: “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” Well, we’d like to put a new-age spin on this: “If an organization implements a digital transformation plan without a strategic plan, does it have an impact?”

It is clear that businesses understand the importance of digital transformation, yet they’re struggling to go from vision to execution. They’re challenged with evolving from legacy hardware to a services-based ecosystem that supports digital drivers like cloud, mobile, big data analytics, and social.

In our experience, the reason for this is because an initial business discovery process was not sufficiently performed to put a strategic execution roadmap in place. Perhaps customer-specific strategies were not as well-defined as intended, or there was a misalignment between business outcomes and technology implementation. Digitization consists of many moving parts, technology, people, processes, etc., making it all too easy for companies to get stuck or lost in the process.

The Impact of Doing Digital Right

Without question, digitization represents massive customer experience, operational, and revenue opportunities. Seizing this opportunity, however, requires transitioning to a services-based approach that targets customer- and vertical-specific needs, especially those related to communications.

I recently spoke with Richard English, Avaya Professional Services Managing Director. English explained how enterprises can bridge a digital gap by engaging in a Discovery Workshop. As an undisputed leader of enterprise communications, Avaya helps countless organizations enhance their operational strategies and customer relationships through this innovative, one-day workshop. He explained how:

A successful discovery uncovers new revenue and CX opportunities by ensuring engagement with and incorporation of executive strategy and goals, operational status, technical assessment and potential economic value. Learning how collaboratively building and delivering a compelling digital business case/roadmap—leveraging Avaya’s knowledge and expertise with you and your business leaders—contributes to overall project success.

English said, “It’s easy to say, ‘Here’s where we’re at today in our current state, and here’s where we want to be in our future state’ … but you need to understand the level of effort [and] the level of cost required to achieve that future state.”

A digital roadmap must be created with an inherent understanding of customer, revenue, technical, people, processes and operational drivers. The initial business discovery process is vital for successfully executing digital transformation, making an exercise like a Discovery Workshop instrumental for organizations today.

Avaya is a leading provider of solutions that enable customer and team engagement across multiple channels and devices for better customer experience, increased productivity and enhanced financial performance. Its world-class contact center and unified communications technologies and services are available in a wide variety of flexible on-premise and cloud deployment options that seamlessly integrate with non-Avaya applications. The Avaya Engagement Environment enables third parties to create and customize business applications for competitive advantage. Avaya’s fabric-based networking solutions help simplify and accelerate the deployment of business critical applications and services. For more information, please visit www.avaya.com.